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Rays Tank: Best DH

Your one stop shop for complaining about your favorite team.

By John Ford
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Welcome to the Rays Tank, where the Rays are razed and so are the tanks. But before we get to ye olde Linke Dump and Banal Chatter, let's take a quick tour of This Day in Baseball. Ladies, gentlemen, and dudeofdudeses, I give you: August 25th.

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As usual our first stop looks at a classic Rays moment. And this one is real rarity, as we find Pat the Bat doing something productive in '09.

Of course, this is Pat Burrell we're talking about, so every WooHoo was of course followed by a Doh. But still!

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Our next stop is Miami in 2013, where the Marlins have the bases loaded with nobody out. Until they hit it Nolan Arenado.

That's some fancy footwork and a hella throw.

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For our ex-Ray clip, I was going to show you Delmon Young's three-run bomb that started a back-to-back-to-back against the Rays from just last year. But then I thought: too soon. So here's Delmon as a Twin when we were still jazzed about trade strings.

Or if you're a masochist, go here.

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Our last stop is 1990 Detroit, where Prince's dad goes over the roof in Tiger Stadium.

This was one of only four homers to reach the left field roof at old Tiger Stadium. The others were Harmon Killebrew, Frank Howard, and Mark McGwire. (By comparison, thirty reached the roof in right.)

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Here's some other stuff that happened on August 25th:

  • 1922: Proving it's never over till it's over, the Cubs nearly blew a 25-6 fourth inning lead against the Phils, hanging on for a 26-23 win. Philadelphia left the bases loaded in the ninth, because of course they did.
  • 1967: Dean Chance pitches his second no-no of the month, beating Cleveland 2-1. He worked a shorted five-inning perfect game against Boston on August 5th.
  • 1985: Dwight Gooden becomes the youngest pitcher to win 20 games. He was a month younger than Bob Feller.

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But enough ancient history. What's up with Your Rays right now? As promised, here's your Link Dump:

  • Kevin Ruprecht of Beyond the Box score looked back at what was right and what went wrong with Justin Masterson. Now that the Red Sox have released him, I think he immediately becomes the most interesting scrap-heap pitcher out there.
  • Eno Sarris thinks about fastballs, with Nathan Eovaldi's weird fastball results as his gateway.
  • Another check on the relationship between spending money and winning games.
  • Maybe everyone already saw this, but I was away for a few days, so h/t whatsitmather on this one. Two thoughts. 1) Kevin Kiermaier! 2) Ben Zobrist had a bit more speed five years ago. This makes me think he was every bit as fantastic an outfielder as the advanced metrics thought he was (but the world at large didn't quite believe).

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